It has been five months since notorious Canadian white supremacist Paul Fromm held a memorial service at Richview Public Library in Etobicoke for Barbara Kulaszka, a lawyer well known for defending Fromm’s fellow travellers — Ernst Zundel included. It has been five months since a broad coalition of conservatives and progressives lined up in condemnation of Toronto Public Libraries’ decision to rent Fromm a room.

“Those tied to hate and bigotry have no place in our libraries,” said city councillor James Pasternak. His colleague, John Campbell, suggested the event was a “stain” on the library’s and the city’s reputation. (“It’s all well and good to advocate for free speech,” Campbell tweeted, “but…”) The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs called it “appalling and ludicrous.” Bernie Farber declared his mind boggled, and said it “certainly will discredit the Toronto library system.” Memorial organizer Paul Fromm is probably Canada’s most famous racist, human rights lawyer Richard Warman observed: “If that’s not good enough for the Toronto public library to say, ‘No, thanks,’ then what could be?”

No less an authority than “deeply concerned” Mayor John Tory asked that the library consider cancelling the event, and when the library said its lawyers advised against it — Canadians having a very broad “right to free expression” and all that business — Tory asked the TPL board to “review its room rental policies.”

If you read some media stories this week, you might think TPL caved under all this pressure at Monday night’s board meeting, where a new set of room rental policies was unanimously approved. “Toronto library bars hate groups from renting space,” the Star trumpeted.

The new policy “state(s) much more strongly that room bookings will be denied or cancelled when the library ‘reasonably believes the purpose of the booking is likely to promote, or would have the effect of promoting, discrimination, contempt or hatred of any group’,” a staff report notes. In the wrong hands, that kind of language can certainly lead to overreach. But there is reason to hope TPL’s hands are strong and clean, and that it realizes its obligation as a public entity not to limit speech capriciously.

“The revised policy would not change the decision about allowing the (Kulaszka) memorial,” says city librarian Vickery Bowles.

On the other hand, she says, nor would it change the library’s decision with respect to another booking Fromm tried to make in October. He wanted to invite Victor Fletcher, editor of Toronto Street News — a compendium of bigoted conspiracy theories — to talk about his newspaper and take questions from the audience. The library turned him down.

The distinction, says Bowles, was not about who was invited or who might attend but about the purpose of the two events. “It would not be reasonable for us to expect there would be hate speech at a memorial service,” she says. By contrast, she argues, it was reasonable to expect there could be at an event where the proprietor of an anti-Semitic conspiracist rag was holding court about his rag. TPL’s legal advice has unanimously supported this approach, she says.

Bruce Ryder, a constitutional law professor at Osgoode Hall who consulted with TPL during the review, says the new policy is superior to the old — and more Charter-proof, should it be challenged — in that it states its purpose explicitly: “providing equitable access to services and maintaining a welcoming, supportive environment free from discrimination and harassment.” He suspects courts would consider a purposive booking denial a reasonable infringement of free speech rights in pursuit of that objective.

'We don't like these people's views, therefore they can't use the space.' That's just a terrible argument in a democratic society

Philosophically, I would have preferred TPL went further and disavowed the whole idea of policing room bookings for what might happen during them. The bar for criminal hate speech in Canada is high: neither Fromm nor Fletcher has ever been charged, let alone convicted. And if nobody outside the room even hears what’s going on, who even cares?

Practically, too, that would make fewer headaches for library staff. “I think the library will end up taking heat in some circumstances when it rents space, and it will take heat if it refuses to rent premises in some instances because of the anticipated nature of the expression.” says Ryder. (No kidding.) He advocates a “cautious approach to denying space,” but such an approach will likely produce more incautious criticism in future.

Still, it appears the library is mostly sticking to its guns. Good on the library. “We’re all using the library, and other people’s views might trouble us. We may find others’ views offensive. But that’s not a reason in itself to bar them from using public space … in a society committed to freedom of expression and freedom of belief,” says Ryder. “’We don’t like these people’s views, therefore they can’t use the space.’ That’s just a terrible argument in a democratic society.”

It is to their great discredit that so many powerful voices in this city argued precisely that and thought it virtuous.